stantly. It was a broiling day: my face became like a furnace through exertion and fear. These sufferings, at the same time, were intensely aggravated by my overhearing the grooms, who rode behind, laughing and enjoying the exhibition I was very unwillingly affording them. My companions, I perceived alse, with I believe the exception of M. himself, began to suspect the true state of the case. At length we drew up for a few moments: it was, however, but a short respite. "Open the wicket," said M. to the grooms, "that we may get on the sod."

The groom did as he was ordered.

"I'll wait on the road for you," said I, puffing and blowing, for I had a wholesome dread of the sod.

"Oh," said he, "we are not coming back this way; we proceed through the fields. Come along."

Now," thought I, "for the trial." I walked Sam in as quietly as I could, and practised a thousand frauds in order to keep him perfectly placid. I allowed him to put down his head and nibble a little grass. "Perhaps," thought I, "horses may have gratitude."

Miss L.

Presently one of the young ladies of the party began to urge on her steed into a quicker pace. "Now for a gallop," said Immediately all the horses began to show that restless spirit, which usually seizes them when one of their species exhibits any sign of accelerated motion. Sam happened at this time to be absorbed with his nose in a rich bunch of clover; for anticipating the 'mouvement,' as the French politicians say, I had no longer confined him to an occasional nibble; but hoping to draw off his attention from the transactions of his neighborhood, had given him license to feast himself ad libitum on the dainties with which he was surrounded. But, not withstanding all my precautions, Sam soon got a sidelong glance of the antics which the rest of the brotherhood were enacting, and the esprit de corps wholly overcoming his passion for clover, he forthwith commenced practising the same evolutions. It was just as if St. Paul's Cathedral was dancing under you. I did every thing I could to moderate his transports: patted him whenever I could spare one hand from the reins-called him "pretty Sam"-he nevertheless got more intractable. I now prodigally lavished every possible term of endearment upon him, pulling in the bridle at the same time with all the muscular force I was master of. He went round and round with me; snorted, pawed the ground, rose on his hind legs. Good boy-monster-fine fellow-O misery!nice Sam pretty little Sam and off he goes in a gallop! I fly on the wings of the wind, both arms embracing his neck -I could not see whither I was going-I passed near my party, for I caught their voices, and distinctly heard all saying, "As I live, that old brute is running away with B."

After this I became insensible. I have since ascertained that, in crossing an immense ditch, my tyrant threw me, and that I was taken up by the party. Shall I go on? No. I will not add another word, except merely to say-you may rest assured, I will never get on Big Sam's back again, or that of any other horse that ever breathed the breath of life!

A COWARD'S BRAVERY.

At the storming of Morne Fortune, in the West Indies, I knew of an Irish officer of the name of W., who had lately joined his corps. He led the forlorn hope and displayed a cool determination that surprised the oldest soldiers. Bearing the King's colors in one hand, and waving his sword with the other, he was the first to ascend the ladder, and plant our victorious standard in the breach.-W. was thanked in public orders by his commanding officer, who congratulated him on his bravery, and informed him that he was recommended for immediate promotion. What was his surprise when the younger soldier answered that all he wished to obtain was leave to return home and throw up his commission in favor of a younger brother, who ardently wished to embrace the profession of arms. The Colonel, surprised at so singular a request, was naturally anxious to know to what he could attribute so strange a resolution in a young man with so bright a career before him.

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No, sir, but the fear of degradation." "You speak in riddles."

"Then, sir, I must be explicit; it is this very expectation of other conflicts in which you are kind enough to think I may again distinguish myself, that convinces me that the career of arms is not my destiny. Must I confess the painful truth? the sight of the first man that fell near me in the ranks struck me with that sense of danger, that innate feeling of self-preservation, that to my shame I own it, I was on the point of disgracing nyself forever when the next man was killed, bespattering me with his brains; for a moment I was nearly struck blind, yet I moved on mechanically with our party. I was aroused from this apathetic state by the loud cheers of my companions; it seemed to me a dream. I felt inspired with an unknown energy-I knew not where I was when I found myself on the breach, my colors planted in the ruin, surrounded by the dead and dying. What may appear to you, sir, still more strange, I scarcely knew myself I gazed on my uniform, wondered at my transformation from the peaceable garb I wore in my father's office (he was an attorney) to the trappings of a soldier. In short, all appeared to me a vision. The kind congratulations of my comrades soon restored me to my senses, which soon convinced me that the closet was more natural to me than the field."

This candid confession of what might be called natural feeling, did not deter his commanding officer from urging him to persevere in the profession; his resolutior was unalterable. He returned to Ireland; his brother succeeded him in the regiment.

THE NAKROW ESCAPE.

A TALE OF TRUTH.

Terrence was a stout, broad-faced, good-humored boy about fifty, who would rather talk than work, and rather sing than do either. He was a sort of agricultural dependant upon Farmer Mullins: he was his hedger, his ditcher, reaper, mower, gardener, and factotum; and the farmer, won by his humor and good-nature, kept him as a hanger-on about the farm, more than for any particular industry, of which he was seldom found guilty.

An elderly gentleman, who lodged in the farm-house, had been repeatedly amused with the vocal powers of Terrence, particularly at daybreak, when he had much rather his morning's winged dreams' had not been broken, as he heard him pass to the stable, where he was to perform the augean process. Terrence had just rested himself on his pitchfork, to give more effect to the last cadence of 'Sheela na Guira,' when the gentleman complimented him by saying, "You 've a fine voice of your own, Terrence."

"Faith, sir," replied he, "you may say that, and thank God for it; although it had like to have been the ruin of me, so it had."

'The ruin of you, my good fellow, how so?"

"I can soon incense you how, sir," said he; "but you should hear the songs first, and by them you will see what they had nearly done for me."

"Well, Terrence," said the gentleman, "if you will come in, in the evening, and sing me the songs, I'll hear your story, and give you half a crown."

"Oh, by dad, that I'll do! and thank your honor," said Terrence. So accordingly, he brushed his brogues, washed his shining face, put on his long-tailed grey frieze, and made himself clean and dacent,' to go into the prisence, and made his bow among the family party, and commenced The Groves of Blarney,''The Cruiskeen,' The Boys of Kilkenny.' 'Donnybrook Fair,' and many others, when he came to a full stop. Now, sir," says he, "I'll give you the one that was near the ruin of me.' This was none other than 'The Wake of Teddy Roe,' a song as well known as the writer, S. W. Ry ley, author of the Itinerant; which, when Terrence had finished, he said: "There, sir, that 's the one; and I never sing

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it, but I think of the narrow escape I had. And now I'll tell you how that was. I was loading the cart with manure, God help me! one morning, and singing that song, when a gentleman came by, and stood to listen to me. Faiks! I little thought of the mischief he was putting on me. 'You've an excellent voice,' says he, my man, and that's a good song you 're singing.' Faith, I have, sir,' for I had been told it often before; and for the song, shure it bates Bannohir, and that bates all the world intirely.' Well,' says he, 'have you any more of them songs?' Shure I have, sir,' says I, 'one for every day in the week.' Well, then, come up to my house in Dublin, and sing all you know, and I will see what I can do for you; but would you be afraid to sing them before a large company?' 'Not in the least, sir; the larger the better, and then they 'll all hear at once.'

"He told me where he lived; and accordingly I wint, and was showed up to a fine drawing-room, where sat one beautiful crater at the piania, and another at the harp. 'Terrence O'Farrell,' says I to myself, 'hould yourself up, you 're among quality intirely;' and sure enough there was a great company. One of the beautiful craters handed me, with her own hands, a glass of wine, saying, 'Take this, Mr. O'Farrell, before you begin.' 'Och,' thought I, 'Mister O'Farrell !— but I wish my mother heard that.' So I plucked up a spirit, and says I, I'm obleeged to you, ma'am, for the compliment, but barrin its all the same to you, I'll sing better afther the smallest taste in life of whiskey.' So wid that, the gentleman up and filled a cruiskeen for me, and that made all the differ wid me. 'Will I sit down, or stand up, sir?' says I. 'As you please,' said the gentleman. Well, then, as you 're all sated, shure I'd be but one like yourselves, so I'll stand up, then I can give ye the thrue maning.' Well, to be sure, I Isang to their intire satisfaction, and great divarsion they had wid me.

"When I finished, 'Now,' says the gentleman, Terrence I'll give you thirty shillings a week to sing me three of them songs three times a week.' I soon agreed to the bargain; and putting the card he gave me with a trifle on it into my pocket, which I did not stop to make out, I made the best of my way home, to tell my mother how my fortune was made all at once.

"Well, as luck would have it, who should be sitting wid my mother but Tim Dooley. Now Tim had been brought up at the Sunday School, and had the gift, more nor any other man, and mighty proud he was-for there was no speaking to him since he learned to read and write-but he 'd no notion of singing. Well, 'May be,' thought I, Mister Tim, you won't be so consequence, when you see who the rich man is before you.' So I up and tould them all I'd done, and sung, and said. May be my mother's eyes did not shine, the ould crathur! and may be she did not bless her son Terry. Faiks she did; but it was left for Tim Dooley to spoil it all. "Where is this you are to go to?' says he. Och! wait awhile till I show you,' says I. Show me the ticket,' says he; and, taking it out of my pocket, he set up such a howl! 'What's come over you, sir?' says I. Och hone! och hone is it come to this you are?-is it going to disgrace your family you are?-and the mother that 's sitting before you? Sure I thought there was some ill wind in the mighty good fortune all of a suddint. But for you to bring your ould mother with sorrow to the grave, by goings on of the like, is what she neither desarves from you or the likes of you.' 'Let's be knowing my sin,' says I, and I'll thank you.' 'Faith here's your sin and your shame before you; and if you go to the place of this present writing,' says Tim, 'why, you 're a lost man, that 's all!' Will you please to give us the benefit of your larning now, and no more words from you,' says I, not very well pleased at the sarmon he was beginning, and let's see the way I'm going to my ruin?' 'Shure it's strait forward forenint you here." And he read the direction-Mr. Ryder, manager of the Theatre Royal, Crown street, Dublin'!!!'Och, save my poor boy' says my mother. And has your mighty fine pipe brought you to this disgrace?' says Tim. 'Och, the spalpeen!' says I, to go to make a tayatrical of a dacent woman's child! Och, is that the game you 're after, Mr. Ryder? And if I'd known that, may be but I would have seen you, and all your iligant friends hanging by the fifth wheel of Pharaoh's chariot in the Red Say, before I'd call up my lungs for your divarsion.'

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Well, I burned the card before their faces, and blessed the star that lit Tim to the cabin that night, to save me from the narrow escape I had of being a ruined man by my beautiful voice, bad luck to it! and from becoming a divarting vagabond by act of Pralaiment."

THE FIRST OF MARCH.

The bud is in the bough

And the leaf is in the bud. And Earth's beginning now

In her veins to feel the blood, Which, warm'd by summer's sun In th' alembic of the vine, From her founts will overrun

In a ruddy gush of wine. The perfume and the bloom

That shall decorate the flower, Are quickening in the gloom

Öf their subterranean bower; And the juices meant to feed Trees, vegetables, fruits, Unerringly proceed

To their preappointed roots. How awful is the thought

Of the wonders under ground, Of the mystic changes wrought

In the silent, dark profound;
How each thing upward tends

By necessity decreed,
And a world's support depends
On the shooting of a seed!
The Summer's in her ark,

And this sunny-pinion'd day
Is commission'd to remark
Whether Winter holds her sway:
Go back, thou dove of peace,

With the myrtle on thy wing, Say that floods and tempests cease,

And the world is ripe for Spring. Thou hast fann'd the sleeping Earth

Till her dreams are all of flowers, And the waters look in mirth

For their overhanging bowers; The forest seems to listen

For the rustle of its leaves, And the very skies to glisten

In the hope of summer eves. Thy vivifying spell

Has been felt beneath the wave,
By the dormouse in its cell,

And the mole within its cave;
And the summer tribes that creep
Or in air expand their wing,
Have started from their sleep,
At the summons of the Spring.
The cattle lift their voices

From the valleys and the hills,
And the feather'd race rejoices

With a gush of tuneful bills;
And if this cloudless arch

Fills the poet's song with glee,
O thou sunny first of March,
Be it dedicate to thee!

THE CREED OF A PRETTY WOMAN.

I believe that a Cashmere shawl is to a woman an object of the first necessity.

I believe that marriage is a municipal formality, in which there is nothing embarrassing, which is susceptible of modifications according to the humor of the contracting parties. I believe that the first virtue of woman is coquetry; the greatest defect, maturity; and her greatest crime, old age. I believe that the Salique law is a monument of barbarism which disgraces the European codes.

I believe that Joan of Arc was the greatest man that the world ever produced, and that Ninon d l'Enclos the greatest woman.

I believe that paint is more necessary to the heart of a woman than to her complexion.

I believe that a woman should rather want bread than a gown or a hat à-la-mode.

I believe that fashion is the goddess of women and the ty

rant of men.

"But, commandant, the superior officers, like you, are obliged to ride."

"Pshaw! once a year, at the inspection, and then on a hired horse. For my part, I was always first a seaman, then a footsoldier-I never could ride."

He proceeded about twenty paces, looking aside at me from time to time, as if expecting a question; but as I uttered not a word, he continued:

"You are not inquisitive, I see. And yet what I have just said must surprize you."

"I have learned not to be much surprized at any thing," said I.

"Oh! but, if I were to tell you what made me quit the navy, we should see."

"Well," I replied, "why do n't you try? That will warm you, and it will make me forget that the rain is pouring in at my back, and running down to my very toes."

The good chef de bataillon, with boyish pleasure, made due preparations for commencing his story. He readjusted his cap covered with oil-skin, and he gave that shirk of the shoulder which only those who have served in the infantry can figure to themselves-that shirk which the soldier gives to raise his knapsack, and to lighten its weight for a moment: it is a habit of the soldier, which, when he becomes an officer, he cannot break himself of. After this convulsive gesture, he took a sip of his wine in the cocoanut-shell, gave a kick of encouragement on the belly to his little mule, and began.

THE HISTORY OF THE RED SEAL.

You must know, in the first place, my lad, that I was born at Brest. I began life in the army, earning my half-ration and my half-pay at the age of nine years, my father being a soldier in the Guards. But, as I was fond of the sea, one fine night while I was on furlough at Brest I stowed myself away in the hold of a merchantman bound for India. Iwas not discovered till the ship was out at sea, and the Captain chose rather to make me a cabin-boy than to throw me overboard. When the Revolution came, I had made some way, and had in my turn become Captain of a small tight merchant-vessel, having skimmed the sea for fifteen years. As the old royal navy-a good old navy, faith!-was suddenly stripped of officers, the Captains of the merchant-navy were taken to supply their places. I had done some business in the privateering line, which I shall tell you about by-and-by. I was appointed to the command of a brig-of-war called the Marat.

On the 28th of Fructidor, 1797, I received orders to sail for Cayenne. I was to carry out sixty soldiers, and one person condemned to transportation, the only one left out of one hundred and ninety-three by the Decade frigate, which had taken all the others on board a few days before. I had orders to treat this person with indulgence; and the first letter of the Directory inclosed a second, sealed with three red seals, one of which was as big again as the other two. I was forbidden to open this letter till I should reach the first degree of north latitude, and the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth of longitude, that is to say, till I was near passing the Line.

It was

We had a capital passage, too. I always had weather made on purpose. As I had never had any but black faces on board, I made my two young lovers dine with me every day. This cheered me. When we had finished our biscuit and our fish, the young couple would sit looking at each other as though they had never seen one another before. I then burst into a hearty laugh, and rallied them. They then laughed along with me. You would have laughed too, had you seen us like three idiots, not knowing what ailed us. It was really funny to see them so fond of one another. They were always contented any where, and always satisfied with what was given them. And yet they were upon allowance, like all of us; I merely added a little Swedish brandy when they dined with me; but only a small glass, to keep up my rank. They slept in a hammock, where the ship rolled them about, like those two pears, which I have yonder in my wet handkerchief. They were brisk and happy. I did like you-I asked them no questions. What need had a seafaring man like me to know their name and their affairs. I was carrying them to the other side of the sea, as I should have carried a couple of birds of paradise.

By the time we had been a month at sea, I could not help looking upon them as my children. Every day, when I called them, they came and sat down beside me. The young man wrote on my table, that is to say on my bed, and, when I asked him, he assisted me to take my observation: he could do it soon as well as I could; I was sometimes quite astonished at it. His young wife seated herself on a little barrel and fell to sewing.

One day, when we were sitting together in this way, I said to them: "I can't help thinking, my young friends, what a pretty family picture we make here: I do n't mean to question you, but probably you have not more money than you need, and you are both too delicate to dig and to delve, as the people transported to Cayenne do. Tis a horrid country, I tell you, frankly; but I-an old sun-dried wolf's skin-I could live there like a lord. If you have, as it seems to me―mind, I have no wish to question you-some little friendship for me, I would cheerfully quit my old brig, and settle there with you, if you like. For my part, I have no family whatever but a dog; I am tired of this sort of life; you would be company for me. I could assist you in many ways; and I have picked up a tolerable sum by very honest smuggling, on which we might live, and which I would leave you whenever I should turn up the whites of my eyes, to speak politely."

They eyed one another in the utmost astonishment, looking as though they thought I was not telling the truth; and the girl ran, as she always did, and threw her arms about the other's neck, and seated herself on his knees, with a face as red as your coat, and weeping at the same time. He clasped her very close in his arms, and I saw tears in his eyes too. He gave me his hand, and turned paler than usual. She spoke to him in a low tone, and her long, fair hair, having got loose, dropped over his shoulder like a cable that is suddenly uncoiled, because she was brisk as a fish-that hair-ah! had you but seen it!—it was like gold. As they continued to talk